Pros and Cons of Different Trimming Methods, an IHCS Hoof-Care Roundtable moderated by Doug Anderson, Mount Airy, Md.

It’s important to remember that the foot is not a block of wood that we can do anything we want to when trimming. Regardless of the trimming method, the sole should share weight rather than bear the weight. Therefore, the farrier’s priority should be leaving mass to protect the foot. The knife should be considered a scraping tool rather than a cutting tool. More consideration should be given to what farriers are leaving on the foot, rather than what’s being taken off.

The environment, the job the horse performs, anatomy, balance, and whether the horse is shod or barefoot, are among several critical factors that should be considered when employing a trimming method.

It’s important to understand the function of the limbs and how they differ. The front limbs bear the majority of the weight, while the hind provide propulsion. As a result of the differences in function, they need to be trimmed differently.

Pros and Cons of Diversifying Your Practice, an IHCS Hoof-Care Roundtable moderated by Curtis Burns of Wellington, Fla.

There are strong benefits to being more than a one-trick pony, yet there is also a great deal of credibility in being strong within a niche area. Creating opportunities for exposure to a range of disciplines might open a door you wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. Not to mention, the greater your network of connections in various disciplines, the more valuable your continued education becomes.

Have you evaluated the shoeing techniques you use, and have you asked yourself why it is you use them? Understanding the why behind what we do makes us better horseshoers. 

Valuable and solid justifications for your techniques will solidify and reinforce them. Bracing against what you don’t know or understand only makes you inflexible. Be an independent thinker. You have far more to gain with an open mind than you have to lose. Remember that you are an advocate for the horse. You have a responsibility to remain open-minded on its behalf.

Location determines the disciplines that farriers work on, the breeds that you are exposed to, how much money you make and the way you shoe. How you shoe and the fine details of shoeing truly come to light based on where the horse is.

What footing is the horse being ridden on? What environment is the horse living in? Is the horse traveling from one location to the next? How have you best prepared the horse to succeed in its environment? Have you successfully accomplished a goal for a horse in one arena, then found that particular approach didn’t work in a different scenario? 

Horses are dynamic. That’s why formulas and rigid textbook rules for how to shoe work best only as suggestive outlines. The only reliable formula is to shoe the horse according to its formula instead of yours.